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Jack Harvel

Jack is originally from Kansas City, Missouri and has been making his way west since graduating from the University of Missouri, working a year and a half in Northeast Colorado before moving to Bend in the Spring of 2021. When not reporting he’s either playing folk songs (poorly) or grand strategy video games, and checking out the different hiking trails in Central Oregon.

jharvel@gannett.com
Posted inSpecial Issues & Guides

Farming the World’s Largest Bird

A Central Oregon farmer seeks to revive a farming trend that can be an alternative to beef: Ostriches
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Calling this animal a pet may be a stretch, but between Bend and Redmond, 17 ostriches roam around a hatchery. The 7-feet-tall birds are in their mating season, and deep in the pasture you can spot the males dancing trying to grab the attention of female members of the herd. Soon, the farm will be […]

Posted inNews

Masking After Mandates

With no more mask mandates, individuals make the choice to keep or remove their masks
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Oregon ended its mask mandate for indoor spaces on March 12, ending a nearly two-year period of mandatory masking. Since the state first instituted mask mandates in June 2020, there’s only been one period without the mandate, which was quickly reinstated as the Delta variant surged. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown shelved the first mask mandate […]

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Warm Springs Without Water

The Confederated Tribe of Warm Springs’ water treatment plant is out of service, the latest in a string of issues with aging infrastructure
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An underground electrical fire on March 19 at the Warm Springs Indian Reservation disabled the reservation’s water treatment plant, prompting the tribes’ utilities department to issue an emergency water conservation notice to users in the agency area, including Upper Dry Creek, Sunnyside, Wolfe Point and the Kah-Nee-Ta Hamlets. Water conservation strategies include turning off running […]

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Golf Course Correction

The River’s Edge Homeowners Association finalized a deal to keep its golf course running, after it nearly became a large housing development
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The River’s Edge Community Master Association announced that the sale of River’s Edge Golf Course finalized for a sum of $500,000. In April 2021 River’s Edge’s former owner Wayne Purcell announced his intention to sell the golf course to Pahlisch Homes, which planned to develop it into 370+ homes. Nearby residents weren’t happy. They started […]

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Navigating the Houseless Crisis

A large houseless camp was cleared, while the City, County and state take steps to get people off the street
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At the crack of dawn on March 14 the Bend Police Department arrived at the Second Street camp to clear campers off public right of ways. Bend City Manager Eric King declared the campsite unsafe after a report from BPD deemed it unsafe on Feb. 16, under criteria approved by the Bend City Council in […]

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Housing, Workforce and Education Bills

Oregon’s legislative session wrapped up on March 4, passing a more ambitious agenda than typical for short sessions
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Oregon’s 2022 legislative session wrapped up with over 60 bills crammed into the final two days of the 31-day short session. Lawmakers added $2.7 billion in spending to a budget passed the year before as the state took in $2.5 billion more in revenue than expected. Short sessions usually focus on budget adjustments and technical […]

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Pray for Rain

After years of drought, Central Oregon is at a tipping point
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The last two years represents the third-driest two-year period in the state’s history, mostly driven by Central and Southern Oregon that’ve experienced the driest period in recorded history. Seven Oregon counties, including Deschutes and Crook, experienced worse drought than ever, and surrounding counties are much drier than usual. With two years straining reservoirs and with […]

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Thornburgh in my Side

A proposed resort’s application to buy state-owned land reignites a decades-long battle between the developer and environmental groups
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Thornburgh Resort Company, which since 2005 has sought to build a resort community southwest of Redmond, applied to buy 400 adjacent acres from Oregon’s Department of State Lands. The land contributes to the Common School Fund, which distributes money made from leasing or selling land to Oregon schools on a per-pupil basis. The potential sale […]

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Duel in the High Desert

How mixed martial arts clawed its way to legitimacy, and its continuous evolution
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In 1993 the world’s oldest form of competition, fighting, found its way into the modern world with the broadcast of the Ultimate Fighting Championship 1. The early days of mixed martial arts weren’t exactly mixed, and practitioners of specific martial arts squared off against one another to find the most effective form of fighting. Since […]

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Title IX, 50 Years Later

The landmark civil rights bill barring discrimination based on sex in public schools keeps finding new avenues to build equity
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In the early 1970s Hawaii Rep. Patsy Mink, with the help of Oregon Rep. Edith Green, drafted a version of what would later become Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The whole bill modified financial aid, expanded the Equal Pay Act of 1963 to cover executives, administrators and outside salespeople, and most notably […]

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